The Twenty Greatest Metal Albums of All Time… According to LA Weekly

LAWeekly.com recently took a poll of its metal writers and asked them what they thought were the Top 20 Metal Albums of All Time. The resulting list has twenty great albums on it… or, at least, twenty respectable albums — you may not be a fan of all of these records, but it would be hard to argue that any of them are bad.

The resulting list is also pretty boring.

There are two Pantera albums, two Judas Priest albums, two Motörhead albums, and four Sabbath albums, three of which are from the Ozzy era, and then there’s an Ozzy solo release to boot. While the most recent album on the list came out in 2009, the second-most recent album on the list came out in 1995. Other than four albums — two (non-traditional) death metal releases, a stoner metal classic, and a Tool record — everything on the list is either NWOBHM or thrash. Black metal, grindcore, hardcore, doom metal, power metal… none of these genres get any love.

So, like I said, a perfectly respectable list, but also totally boring. Basically, if this list were a person, it would be a dentist with a successful practice in the suburbs.

Check out the list here, then argue about it in the comments section below. Maybe instead of four Sabbath albums there could have been, like, two Sabbath albums, and then let Napalm Death and Enslaved sneak on there? Just a random suggestion.